Windmills and Dragons
by miss skinny love
Summary: He may be a Headmaster, but he is the Leader of the Light. And that means he needs to make the difficult decisions. He doesn't have the privilege of guilt or horror or disgust. So let Minerva feel it for him. Let her hate him. And all the while, he'll miss Gellert. Gellert — who taught him about the world. Gellert — who taught him of leaders, and of followers.


_Windmills and Dragons_

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Written for the QLFC Round 12.

Team: Kenmare Kestrels.

Position: Chaser 1

Prompts: _main:_ Minerva McGonagall / Albus Dumbledore (employee/employer relationship)

 _Optional:_ #9 object — 'windmill'

#7 dialogue — 'I've forgotten what it's like to feel young'

#3 quote — 'In a world gushing blood day and night, you never stop mopping up pain' – from Aberjhani

Word-count – excluding these notes and the title — 1,969

Beta-checked by: roseusvortex and Zivandre

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He popped another lemon drop into his mouth and sucked happily. The delicious bitter taste spread across his tongue, and he gave a low hum. Muggles were certainly brilliant.

There was a thump. He paused, his beard tickling his hand and falling over part of his robe sleeve. There. Another thump. He gave a mental sigh and took hold of his wand. With a purposive twist, he sent the command to the Gargoyle Guardians to part and allow entry into his office.

His door was practically thrown open. Minerva — her lips pale with anger — with a small tuft of hair by her ear out of place. "Albus," she said. "I have been spitting out the names of candy for the past few minutes." She paused.

"Minerva," he said mildly. "Did you try lemon drops?"

"Did I try — " she sputtered. "Of course I tried blasted _lemon drops._ It didn't work. I would think this would be abundantly clear to you."

"Ah," he said. "That's right. It's _delicious lemon drops._ My mistake." His eyes twinkled.

She stared. Her shoulders drew back and up. "My mistake," she repeated, and gathered her dignity. "Well. Albus. This is not what I have come to discuss." She shot him a withering glare. "I feel that you know this."

"I am aware," he admitted. "This is about Harry."

She moved forward but didn't sit. "This is far more than simply 'about Harry'. This is about you."

"Me?" he asked with some surprise.

"You," she affirmed. "You are the Headmaster of a school, Albus, and I feel you have grievously overstepped your bounds." She quieted. A sort of conflicted look came over her. She said softly, "You know how loyal I am to you, because of what you stand for. You know, Albus, of my respect of you. This you must know. But when you said Harry ought to live with the Muggles, I was aghast. Still I did nothing. Have you seen the boy?"

He looked quizzically at her. His glasses slid down his long nose a little. "You know I have."

"Then you have seen how small he is. How skinny he is. How jumpy he is."

"The boy is eleven," Albus said calmly. "I've forgotten what it's like to feel young," he admitted, "but youth is always tentative."

"And I am many a year older than 'youth'. Intelligent enough to see what's right in front of my eyes."

He raised an eyebrow slightly at the cutting remark. "You're acting very Slytherin."

Her eyes flashed. "I am acting as Head of House of Gryffindor, as well I should."

He fell silent.

"Headmaster," she sighed — whether to remind him or out of some odd nostalgic sense, he did not know. She took a seat and helped herself to a lemon drop, strangely frazzled. "Do you know the Muggle story of Don Quixote?"

He shook his head.

"It's about a madman who reads an absurd amount of books — "

" — such as one young Miss Granger," he broke in.

She shot him a withering look. "All the books lead to madness. Fantasy and reality blur themselves to the man until he thinks he's a knight, destined to take on windmills."

"Windmills?" he wondered.

"Turning mechanisms powered by wind," she said. "Don Quixote thinks them to be dragons. You are becoming like Don Quixote. You have created a fantasy that no-one else is partial to, with real-world ramifications."

He studies her. Is she that worried?

"But you know what happens when people don't understand your fantasy?"

"No doubt you will enlighten me," he said calmly.

"I will," she said plainly. "They burned all of Don Quixote's books. To save him from his madness of windmill dragons and fantasies of knighthood."

"Oh dear," Albus said, reaching for a lemon drop.

She closed her hand over the lid of the jar. Her voice was low and dangerous, like a prowling lioness. "I will burn of all your books, Albus. All your delusions. All your fantasies. Harry is under my care. I will not fail him — not as you have. I respected you. I told you of my reservations. You may as well have spat in my face. Do you think I'm blind — do you think I don't understand why it is that you had the Stone brought here and all those traps set up?" Her eyes darkened. She was every inch a dangerous predator. "I will do this to save you, Albus, and to save Harry."

She left without a backwards glance.

"Oh dear," he said. Abruptly his desire for a lemon drop waned.

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He remembers the first time he sees Gellert. Gellert is beautiful, he remembers thinking. He remembers how the word had felt in his mouth – "beautiful" – how it had curled his tongue and how he could almost taste it. _Beau-ti-ful._ Gellert's is not a common beauty. All too-high cheekbones and sharply angled planes; all vast forehead and too-pointy chin. In hindsight, it's a cruel sort of beauty.

When he first sees Gellert, he's searching for a summer job. He's walking around Godric's Hollow, knocking on doors and offering his skills, seventeen years old and bright and fresh and full of energy.

It's Gellert that opens the door. "Yes?" he asks.

And Albus doesn't just think "beautiful". He says it: "Beau-ti-ful." He tastes it.

Gellert stares. Albus can't quite place his expression — a bit of shock, and a bit of anger, and something almost soft but not quite. The door is closed in his face.

He closes his eyes, disbelieving. He can almost hear his mother — "Have you gone mad?" He gathers his dignity because he's a Gryffindor, and that means bravery. He knocks on the door. For a moment he thinks the door won't be opened, but then it is.

There's that face again. More than that. There's that smirk and the relaxed hands. Those sharp eyes. "I apologize," Albus says calmly. "I tend to have what the Muggles call no air filtration."

"Do you often refer to inane Muggle sayings?" the boy asks. He looks about Albus' age.

"Only when they are appropriate."

"Then I regret to inform you that the saying is inappropriate. I believe you meant 'no filter'. A hideous saying. Why you would refer to it at all is beyond me." The door is once more shut in his face.

Albus stares. He feels energized.

He knocks on the door. Waits. It opens. The boy's face has more of that softness in it, this time. The smirk is more defined.

Albus steps forward a little. His eyes twinkle. "You have me at a disadvantage," he says, "as you have closed the door twice and yet I don't even know your name."

"That I can believe. No doubt you often find yourself at a disadvantage, considering your grievous references to Muggles."

"Ah," Albus grins impishly, "but you corrected that Muggle saying. Is this not proof that you know them better than I? Does this not mean that you are further disadvantaged?"

A slow, long smirk slithers its way across that harsh face. "Know thy enemy."

"Another Muggle saying." Albus smiles and offers his hand. "Albus Percival Wulfic Brian Dumbledore."

"Grindelwald," the boy provides shortly. He shakes Albus' hand. "Dumbledore. Interesting."

"Please," he interjects. "Call me Albus."

Those dark eyes study him for a moment. He feels as though he is being deliberated against some internal measure. "To you, Gellert, then."

Albus' smile broadens. "Gellert," he breathes. Energizing, intelligent, beautiful Gellert.

He's lost the moment Gellert is found.

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Albus remembers more, though. He is old and weary, but these memories are strangely clear and insistent. They reek of emotion. He remembers how, through the passage of time and experience, he and Gellert grew closer. Most of all … he remembers how Gellert used him. There was no love from Gellert, and no romance. No sweet kisses.

Albus should have known from that first conversation. From that beautifully cruel face with its smirks and its dark eyes.

Merlin, he should have known.

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When Ariana is pushed beyond her limit by those Muggles, so is he.

"Gellert," he remembers saying, "do you know what they've done to her?" And he recalls this, like it's right now, like he's just had his world changed all over again —

Gellert looks up and there's no hint of softness in his face. Only sharp planes and sharper eyes. "I know, Albus."

"Do you?" Albus asks, and he feels like he's swelling up with indignation. The redness has spread from his hair to his face. "She can't even use her magic properly … everything is just … she's … "

"Ruined," Gellert says, as calm as he ever is, "by Muggles."

Albus is silent.

Gellert had whispered into his ears — with that silver tongue of his — telling Albus how the Muggles didn't know what they did; they didn't know their own darkness. He had said things like _it's not your fault_ and _you can protect Ariana_ and sweet things (because Albus had always loved sweet things) like _darling,_ like _oh my darling._

And Albus was lost. He was less Albus, and more … Gellert's. The thing was … Gellert was never his. Gellert was always his own.

And it's Gellert that teaches him of the Greater Good. It's Gellert that teaches him that there must be a leader, and a follower. It's how he later knows how to buffer himself against reservations; against people who would see only windmills, not dragons; against Minerva's doubts and Severus' sneers. It's how he knows that in a world gushing blood day and night, you never stop mopping up pain.

It's how he learns to move on. To ignore the blood.

And Merlin, does he.

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It was Second Year and Minerva was standing before him, cheeks a ruddy red and mouth slightly parted.

"That's all?" she asked him. "That's all you have to say? Harry has just faced down a basilisk — got stabbed in the arm, Albus — and all you can say is that the Light has triumphed?"

He sighed and folded his hands. "Minerva," he said, and paused. "Won't you take a seat, Minnie?"

"Don't," she began, "don't call me Minnie. And no, I most certainly will not."  
She always said no.

He nodded genially. "Lemon drop?"  
"I don't want a bloody lemon drop, Albus. I _want_ you to care about Harry like he's human, not a chess piece," she exploded.

His lips pressed together. "I know he's human," he said smoothly. "And I also know how not to lose sight of the bigger picture."  
Minerva looked at him like she'd never seen him before. "You can't do this. I made a promise. I will keep it."  
"You keep saying that," he said, "and yet nothing ever changes. This is because I am the leader, and you are the follower. I am the employer, and you are the employee. You work for me, Minerva. You will not stop me. I am only doing what is best," he promised, and the last few words were said with all the sincerity he remembered his younger self had pledged to Gellert.

"This may be so," she said frostily, "but I will. Just — watch — me," she said through her teeth. "There are _no dragons._ You are — " she couldn't even say it. "Good-bye, _Headmaster_." His title has never felt so dirty. So heavy.

"You're not a lioness," he said to her.

She slammed his door shut.

He sighed. He felt abruptly ancient. His shoulders sank. He wished Gellert were here. No amount of sweetness could replace Gellert's _oh my darlings._ But he was to Gellert what Minerva is to him, he knows. (Maybe that's why he liked lemon drops so much. Bitterness with the sweetness.)

Merlin, does he know —

In a world gushing blood day and night, you _never_ stop mopping up pain.


End file.
